On 5.3.2012 01:20 kingvictory2003 wrote:2nd time playing this combo, and it's even better with a Demigod.

I'm enjoying Weird Mind a lot more than I thought I would--although the chances of moronification are rather low, it royally sucks when it happens. Also, amnesia and all those annoying messages get really irritating pretty quickly, especially around greater vaults and those cursed (and way too common) horror pits. Weird Mind was my level 20 pick, and I'm not regretting it one bit :)

Level 40 was Arcane Mastery. For a regular mage, this ability is a serious godsend, with my projected fail rates of Mana Storm and Breathe Logrus 3% and 4%, respectively, at level 50.

Using the Chaos realm is a bit of a delayed gratification move, as the two REAL spells, Mana Storm and Breathe Logrus, can't be obtained until level 45 and level 47. You can certainly get them earlier as a High Mage, but having Nature as a second realm offers so many advantages that I'd have a hard time talking myself into playing a Chaos high mage anytime soon.

Level 49 and going strong...especially after finding a ring of speed +17. I'm pretty set with regards to speed...the hard debate will be adding to that speed with the Pendant of Zeus should I obtain it. The +23 spell capacity from the Bead is pretty amazing, and I'd have to say the implementation of Spell Capacity really helps the artifact's utility.

Getting to level 47 btw was somewhat painful. In the early 30's, I resorted heavily on the Poison Needle to level me up. In the late 30's, I was actually able to use Lightning Storm with some success against Nether and Mana hounds for an alternative experience source. Magic Rocket was just way too inefficient a spell to use.

In the 40's, Nature's Wrath became a serious boon with packs of hounds. Nether, Plasma and Mana hounds were pretty easily taken out with its might...Chaos and Aether Hounds could also be taken out, but with a good bit more damage involved.

On 5.3.2012 02:45 kingvictory2003 wrote:Level 50, after an almost fatal mistake!

I actually defeated Hera with this character, and immediately wore her crown, which gives me this lovely mana pool of 609. Of course, a stray cyberdemon fires a rocket at me, hits me for 800 HP and causes a Deep Gash. I quickly quaffed one of my *healing* and got the hell out.

Forgetting that the randart Jingasa was covering my shards resist... X_x That could've been bad...real bad.

Anyways, now just to find Gandalf's wizardstaff, and I should be good to go. No prob right? :)

On 5.3.2012 02:47 kingvictory2003 wrote:Btw after that near-fatal mistake, I went for the 3rd scroll of artifact creation doing corpse turn-ins. My last two uniques were Ulfang the Black and...Ufthak. You wouldn't believe how hard it was to find Ulfang, but I finally resorted to diving in the Castle to about dlvl 40, and it took a good 15 minutes. Ufthak was EVEN HARDER to find, and it took me about 20 minutes in the Orc Caves teleporting around and detecting like a psycho Ultimate Magus that forgot all spells except Teleport and Nature Awareness.

Oh well, end result was the 3rd scroll of artifact creation, and the Dragon Wings that unfortunately don't have speed or stealth. I was wearing Jack's Cloak before, but having shard resist is worth losing the stealth, and telepathy is covered by the Mirror.

Serpent down, sadly without having found Gandalf's staff or any good source of spellpower.

Sauron actually decided to drop the actual One Ring this time, and I decided to use it for the first time ever for the final battle. Work well it did, with its +38% spell capacity bringing my spellpoints into the 700's.

The fight went as expected, with lots and lots of teleporting, the hurling of massive blobs of raw mana, and tons of Angband-shaking *destruction*s. As a great, great bonus, after the Serpent was a big steaming pile of meat, the Unicorn was in a small pen in the corner of the level, just waiting to eat some Logrus Breath for dinner :) As the Unicorn is usually a *destruct* or avoid at all costs unique, it is satisfying to nail her now and then. Not that I have anything against unicorns in general, but THE Unicorn however...

As a fun aside, I decided to post a screenshot with Hera (+23%), Yasaka-no-Magatama (+23%), the One Ring (+38%), and Incanus (+23%) to get a total of +107% spellpoints, which turned out to be 866 SP. Now THAT's quite a decent amount of damage with 1 runthrough of mana.

Thank Heavens for the almighty Scroll of Mundanity, which bested even the terribly fell enchantments of the One Ring, and made it into just another...Ring. If only Frodo realized it was that easy hehe :)

Before retiring, I decided to donate all my artifacts except those I'm wearing to the Museum. No bonus Sacrifice points for this character as it wasn't one of my Virtues this time, but a good thing that was, as Nature spellcasters get a penalty to spell failure if alignment falls outside of Neutral Evil/Neutral/Neutral Good.

Was fun as always, and thanks for keeping the development going, Chris!